I have spent a good part of my life living in the great city of New York. I will always have an indescribable love for this place, which is odd because generally looking back it was by far the hardest years of my life. Absolutely nothing went the way I had envisioned it. I will say I feel like I can accomplish/ do anything now. I highly recommend every person lives there at some point in their life.
When I went to college in ______ , it was so small I laid down in the middle of the road/ roundabout one night and passed out till 6 in the morning where I was awoken by the sun, not a car. I got up and walked home. I was somewhat lucky, but there was literally nothing in the town so one could get away with this. In New York City, especially Manhattan one cannot get away with such a feet.
I met a guy who we will call “manic” because he had to have been bipolar looking back on the whole situation. We went to the Bleeker Bar on Bleeker Street. If you know New York City, this is almost SoHo but not quite. They had a deal 64 ounces of Yuengling beer for 5 $ after a few of these and retelling the tale above, manic did not believe me. So on are treacherous walk home there was an abandoned empty road next to a hospital off of 13th street & around first and Second Avenue. I laid down in the street long enough for one to take a picture of this stupidity, this some how gave legitimacy to my story and no one in New York ever questioned my stupid stories ever again. Sanity level is a different story.
A few weeks later, I met a friend who relocated to New York as well. He went to my college and knew me, we weren’t friends at the time. He was very up tight and reserve and I was well… not… so “homeboy” and I became friends and started hanging out a lot. To this day homeboy and I make phone dates and talk regularly. You really can’t ask for a better friend in the world. When I first met homeboy we were working at a tv station together doing local news, I was running the camera. Homeboy asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up? I responded, “I am going to be a rock star!” he never forgot that.
So one of these nights we went to the legendary Aerline’s Grocery Store. It is a venue hall in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. There they had this new sensation called rock and roll karaoke. Rock and Roll Karaoke is just what it sounds, there is a live band you have 140 songs they know and you get to be the lead singer of a band for that song. Their homeboy and his female friend who shall remain nameless signed me up to perform rebel yell with out telling me. I was shortly pulled on to stage as the song started and given the mic. I have years of practice of making a fool of myself on a stage. At the young age of 7 I did a stand up comedy act on a cruise ship. It was horrible and my mother loves to play the tape for people I am dating. So I have no lack of confidence. I also love this song and have performed it more times than one should, I eventually got the entire crowd jumping/singing along and at one point I even stage dove. Yes! IT happened. Homeboy was speechless. I am by no means a good singer, but I am not a bad one either. So this set the stage for future hang outs here and an on going competition between me and homeboy. We eventually came up with the ludicrous Idea of having a drinking contest between us. The loser had to get the words my little pony tattoo’d right about where your belt would be, ride around union square on a bike in an american flag thong, nothing else and get their belly button pierced. Thankfully this contest never happened.
